


A Place to Hide

by agentmoppet



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Costume Parties & Masquerades, M/M, Moving On From the Past, Sweet Kisses, Unknown Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 23:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8347162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmoppet/pseuds/agentmoppet
Summary: Harry just needs a moment by himself on Halloween, but a French prince wants to share his hiding place.





	

Harry stared morosely at the portrait. The lady within blew half-heartedly into a party whistle before leaning back in her arm chair and falling asleep. It wasn’t far removed from how Harry felt, and his melancholy changed swiftly to jealousy.

He could have stayed home, but it was Neville’s first Halloween party - his first party at all - and Harry wanted to be here. He knew that Neville would understand exactly why Harry would want to stay away, and would respect his wishes wholeheartedly, which was precisely why Harry had made the effort to come along. Besides, he didn’t really want to be alone.

As it had turned out, several drinks later he had well and truly lost patience for the crowd of swaying party-goers, and he’d quickly found a quiet room to hide. He just wished that the costumes weren’t spelled to last until midnight, even if Hermione did insist that he looked incredibly dashing; he was getting sick of walking around with a fake wooden leg, and the long hair kept getting in his drink.

A flurry of movement sounded behind him, and he turned around to see a worried-looking prince wearing a masquerade mask slam the door behind him and sink against it with a shudder.

“What are you doing?” Harry asked, bewildered. It came out gruffer than it usually would, with a rough sort of accent, because the new costume shop in Diagon Alley was ridiculously committed to fancy dress.

“What does it look like?” the prince drawled, straightening his cravat. His own accent hinted at French, although Harry wasn’t sure if it was the costume or his natural voice. “I’m running away with dignity.”

Harry snorted in surprise as the prince gave him a wry smirk and dropped beside him on the couch.

“So what are you meant to be anyway?” the prince asked after several long seconds of studying Harry’s costume.

“A pirate,” Harry said dully. “Yarr.”

The prince laughed. “You mean one of those Muggle thieves?” His tone sounded wistful. “I used to read books about them whenever I could sneak them past my father.”

The lady in the portrait opened one eye and sighed dramatically. “Me too, darling,” she said with meaning, fanning herself. “Me too.”

Harry couldn’t help laughing at the prince’s blustering attempts to correct her.

“Adventure stories,” the prince finally stammered out, his cheeks flushed in mortification.

Harry thought it looked incredibly cute, and was immediately thankful that his fake beard covered his own creeping blush.

“Well,” the prince said, recovering. “The pirates I read about never ran away, with or without dignity, but they did know when to slip away for a quiet drink.” He stared pointedly at the bottle in Harry’s hand that, to Harry’s embarrassment, was not part of the costume.

“Bottom’s up,” Harry muttered, passing the prince the bottle.

He took an elegant sip, before abandoning pretences and swallowing a decent measure.

“What are you running from?” Harry asked, accepting the bottle and taking a swig.

“Women,” the prince said, pulling a face. “I didn’t think this costume through at all. Everyone wants to dance with a prince.”

Harry shrugged. “That’s because you’re incredibly hot.” He froze as his brain caught up with his mouth.

The prince whipped his head around, his lips parted in shock as he stared at Harry. The possible meaning behind what the prince had said - that he was running away from _women_ \- caught up to Harry as the prince’s mesmerising, grey eyes gazed at him.

Harry had the overpowering urge to know who this person was; he was clearly a friend of Neville’s - Harry might even know him. He thought about reaching out and plucking off the mask, but with the subtle French and the perfect sheen of glitter across the man’s cheek bones, it was likely his costume was just as enchanted as Harry’s.

“Thanks,” the prince said faintly, shifting in his seat. “You’re… pretty fit too.”

Harry grinned, feeling his heart flutter in his chest. “It’s the wooden leg. Men go crazy for amputees, didn’t you know?”

The surprised laughter sounded to Harry like music, and he felt a bizarre surge of pride that he had made it happen. Something told him that although this prince clearly possessed a dry sense of humor, he didn’t laugh very often.

“What are you running from?” The prince’s eyes turned curious, head tilted as if there were nothing more captivating in this moment than Harry.

It was intoxicating, to be the centre of someone’s attention like that for reasons that had nothing to do with his fame, but the prince’s question had brought him crashing back down to earth. He looked down at his hands, trying to keep his sadness from seeping into the room.

“The past,” he said, aiming for wry humor but landing somewhere closer to self-pity.

A look of empathy crossed the prince’s face, and before Harry knew what had happened, the prince had reached out to hold his hand, rubbing his thumb soothingly along Harry’s skin. Harry looked up in surprise.

“It’s hard to escape when everyone around you is oblivious,” the prince agreed. He was staring down at their hands, but his eyes were far away. “But it’s even harder when you’re alone.”

Harry nodded, unable to speak. “We just do the best we can, I guess,” he said faintly.

The prince looked up at him, and before Harry could remember why those eyes looked so familiar, the prince had leaned down, crossing the space that separated them, and kissed him. A breathless moan dropped from Harry’s lips, and Harry had just enough time to think how unusually husky it sounded in his pirate voice before their mouths were opening and their tongues moving languorously together.

Harry reached his hands up to the prince’s neck, pulling him close, and the prince gave a throaty groan of his own. Somewhere behind them a clock began to chime the hour.

They parted, breath shallow and cheeks flushed as they gazed at each other. Harry’s hands were twisted into the prince’s lapels, while the prince seemed to have developed a fascination with Harry’s long, messy hair. Neither of them wanted to let go.

The clock chimed twelve, and Harry breathed a sigh of relief.

“At last,” he murmured, reaching up to slide off the stiflingly warm hat and wig, and spelling the beard away as he did so. “That was getting warm.”

The prince stiffened, and Harry felt his stomach sink. The prince recognised him - of course he recognised him.

“You’re-” the prince began, unable to finish the sentence.

“That bothers you,” Harry said flatly, turning away to stare at the wall and cursing the painful feeling in his chest.

Several moments passed in silence, before the prince took a deep breath and reached up to remove his mask. Harry’s eyes widened as he stared at the flushed face of Draco Malfoy.

“No,” Malfoy drawled, still with a faint hint of French, though it was less obvious than before. His usual sneer was absent, and he looked strangely lost. “But it will bother you.”

They stared at each other. Harry’s eyes dropped to Malfoy’s lapel; his fingers itched to run along the gold embroidery, to pull at the fabric until he could drop his mouth down to the fair skin of Malfoy’s neck.

He licked his lips, and Malfoy noticed.

Malfoy’s breath hitched, and slowly, carefully, he set the mask aside, his eyes never straying from Harry’s. It was a new side to Draco Malfoy, one Harry had never seen before. He wondered how many more sides there were to him, and what he was doing at Neville’s Halloween party in the first place.

Harry dropped the wig on the floor and reached up to clasp Malfoy’s face between his hands. Malfoy smiled, running his hands through Harry’s hair, touselling it beneath his fingers.

“You hardly needed a wig, Potter,” he admonished. “You look like a bloody pirate already.”

“Yarr,” Harry said with a grin, and then he pulled Malfoy back down into a long, slow kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> If Austin Ames can't bloody see through it, I don't see why Harry should...


End file.
